by Gayle, Linda
Hatched? Da fuck? “Okay, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What’s a cock…cocka…”
“Cockatrice,” Arum finished. “A creature as old as time itself. They’re mentioned several times in the Bible and were quite a fixture in medieval tales, until, of course, they were almost wiped out. All but one.”
While he spoke, he arranged Cam’s arms at his sides and straightened his legs. Then he began pulling off Cam’s jacket and cutting off his gore-smeared shirt with a pair of shears from the briefcase. He tossed them over by Liam. Cam’s cell phone slid halfway out of one jacket pocket. A lot of good it would do him now.
“A knight hunted the very last cockatrice, determined to wipe out the species entirely, as they’d done already with dragons. Yet when he had the creature cornered, his sword raised and ready to strike, the knight, Alistair”—Arum pulled off Cam’s sneakers, manipulated Cam’s jeans down his thighs—“remembered the biblical prophecy, that in the end times, small children should play with the cockatrice and not be harmed. In Jeremiah, God promised to send forth cockatrices with his armies against the enemies.” When Cam at last lay naked, Arum settled back again on his knees.
Only half listening to the brother, Dylan trembled with anger. Cam looked so helpless lying there. He was helpless, and so was Dylan against this fucking kung fu monk. Realizing Arum had gone silent, he looked up at the brown-haired man. “What’s all that got to do with Cam?”
Arum lifted a hand. “Everything. Alistair spared the last trice. He had to, because he felt otherwise the biblical prophecy wouldn’t be fulfilled, and he’d be defying God’s law. Rather than slay the monster, he offered himself in submission, and promised the Lord he would tame the beast and press it into holy service. An angel appeared with a golden collar.” He touched the collar around Cam’s throat. “To this day, all trices wear one as evidence of their promise to God and the mother church.”
“He said not to take it off. Never to take it off.” Dylan’s words rattled out of him, and he knew Liam must feel him shaking. Something bad was going to happen. He felt it in his bones.
“It’s safe for me.” Arum’s eyebrows lowered contemplatively. “Normally it wouldn’t be for you. The cockatrice’s gaze is deadly. It’s why we in the order blind ourselves, so that we may interact with them without risk of death.” He reached for the collar.
Dylan thought fast. “What if he wakes up and I look at him?”
Arum’s slight, cold smile chilled him. “In this case, it won’t matter.”
He leaned over Cam and spoke in a language Dylan thought might be Latin. The collar slipped off, and in less than the blink of an eye, Cam was gone.
And some sort of…monster lay there. The only evidence of the transformation was the dust settling in the glow of the lantern, displaced by the body…changing.
Liam held Dylan up in an iron grip. Otherwise he would have fallen.
Cam wasn’t a pretty monster. He wasn’t a sleek wolf or a beautiful unicorn or anything like that. He wasn’t even particularly big, still man-sized, though no human feature remained. He looked like a chicken crossed with a snake crossed with a bat. He had the head of a rooster, complete with a serrated red comb. Above that glowed a golden light, like what Dylan had seen before, only now it was sharp and clear, though it was obviously insubstantial. Just a light.
In place of his human face, he had a hooked orange beak that looked lethal even in sleep. His feathers—fuck, he had feathers—seemed to be dark gray and deep green, a bit scraggly in spots, covering a curved neck and a lean hawk-like body. Instead of feathered wings, though, his were black and leathery, folded loosely at his sides. Armored plates covered his throat and chest. His beautiful long legs had turned into scaly yellow stalks, bent awkwardly as he lay on his back, at the ends of which curled long-toed claws. Each leg sported a twelve-inch spike that pointed inward. Spurs, he remembered back from when his grandpa had roosters. Strangest of all was the scaly tail that stretched out several feet on the soil, with a tuft of feathers and a shiny black barb at the end.
He was ugly and absurd and fascinating all at once, and when Dylan considered he’d fucked him, and been fucked by him, his knees buckled.
Spots danced before his eyes, and Liam shook him. “Breathe,” the monk commanded.
Dylan did and shook his head. “I…can’t believe it.”
“Behold the cockatrice,” Arum murmured reverently. He laid the golden collar in the briefcase and lifted a knife instead.
“Hey!” Dylan pulled against Liam’s hands. “Please, just because he’s…that, what he is, you can’t hurt him.”
Arum paused, parting the feathers on Cam’s…well, where Cam’s stomach would have been. “Why?” he asked curiously. “Now that you’ve seen his true form and know he’s a monster, why would you ask me to spare him?”
“Because I love him,” Dylan answered. Without hesitation, without caring. He nodded. “I do. I swear, I won’t say a word about this. Just…put his collar back on, and I’ll take him out of here, and you’ll never have to hear nothing from either of us ever again.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not the way things are going to work here.” Arum plucked a handful of feathers from Cam’s belly and set them aside. “Although I must say, the Lord does work in mysterious ways.” He paused again. “Would it help if I told you part of Cameron will live on? Part of you as well.”
“What part?” The spots were swirling again, his pulse pounding in his ears, and he felt Liam easing him down to his knees before he passed out.
“You’re going to have a son.” The light winked off the knife as Arum leaned in to slice Cam open.
“I love him.”
Those words summoned Cam from the darkness surrounding him, an inky sea in which he drowned.
“I love him.”
Human words penetrating his cockatrice brain. A sharp tug at his abdomen as feathers were plucked. A murmuring voice—Arum. Arum!
Everything rushed back—Arum’s betrayal, Liam pinning Dylan, the dart, the weasels. Cam screeched and whipped up his head. First the older brother startled, and then the younger one, Liam, yelled out.
Cam just caught the descending knife in one claw as Arum tried to stab him. They grappled only seconds, but it was long enough for Liam to pull protective goggles over his own eyes for protection. Dylan made a dash to escape, shuffling on hands and knees across the ground, but Liam snatched him up once more. Dylan threw a wild gaze at Cam, and Cam turned his head just before he might have killed him.
He should have remembered Arum had two hands, because he felt a ripping sensation as the brother sliced into Cam’s right wing with a second blade.
Cam screeched again, his voice like that of a thousand eagles battering the walls of the chamber. He leapt to his feet, snapping at Arum, his beak clacking. Of course the damned monk was agile and well trained and sprang out of the way. His dog attacked and got a mouthful of feathers before Cam kicked it with a powerful blow and sent it sprawling out of the circle of light.
“Cameron!”
He turned toward Liam, then away again quickly, nearly forgetting Dylan was vulnerable. Curse his hated eyes! He had no way to tell Dylan to cover his. But he’d seen enough—Liam had Dylan in a chokehold that would snap Dylan’s neck.
“I’ll kill him,” Liam barked out. “Surrender now.”
“We want the egg, Cameron,” Arum said, hands up in a defensive fighting pose. “The church needs it. It is your duty—“
Cam stretched out his neck and hissed. He snapped his tail, waving the poison barb, bristling the feathers in a stiff ring around his neck. Kill, rip, gut! It took every ounce of willpower not to leap upon the monk.
“Liam, release him.” Arum opened his hands, then lowered them slightly. “There might be another way, Cameron. I might have…misjudged.” To Dylan, he said, “Shield your eyes, Dylan. His gaze is lethal. It doesn’t matter if you’ve grown immune to his guise.”
He could hear Dyl
an’s frightened, rapid breathing behind him, wanted to go to him but didn’t trust what might happen. Then Liam dragged Dylan over in front of him anyhow, and he saw that Dylan had put his hands over his eyes.
The smell of his lover’s blood had Cam tearing up clods of dirt and leaves in his fury. But his human mind, what was left of it, forced himself to calm.
“That’s better,” Arum murmured. He reached out an open palm. “Come here, Cameron. You’ve always trusted me, haven’t you? Come here. You’ve no choice, really. It’s all right. You’ve been confused.”
Cam’s mind swam in a fog. How had everything gone so horribly wrong? Guilt wreaked havoc inside his heart, where his trice and human sides battered against each other. In this form, he was a beast, a well-conditioned beast, and it was so hard to fight the brother’s command. Plus cooperating might ensure another moment of safety for Dylan. Lowering his head because he was too overwhelmed to do otherwise, Cam allowed the monk to stroke his beak.
Arum smiled. “Yes, that’s it. You haven’t been well, have you?”
A lifetime of behavioral training and imprinting could not be overcome in minutes, not even in the heat of battle. Cam felt his will crumbling beneath the familiar touch, the fatherly voice. Arum held his head between his hands. “You didn’t know you were gravid, did you, my boy?”
Cam shook his head, his terrible head that must be horrifying for Dylan to see. Shame overrode guilt, and then they ran together through his ugly form. He settled heavily onto the floor, defeated. Dylan would never want him now. Surely he’d misheard those three little words.
“You and Dylan have produced something very special,” Arum continued. “We always knew you would make your mark in the world, Cameron. And you have. You’ve been plagued by the sense that you’re different. Now I can tell you that difference is that you’re God’s chosen. In ten centuries, there has not been another like you. We’ve waited that long for you. And for your offspring.”
He shuddered at the words. What did this all mean? He was so tired, the tranquilizer still pulsing through his system. And his belly felt odd. Gravid. That meant he had an egg inside him. He bent his neck and pushed his beak beneath his feathers on his side.
“It’s fertile,” Arum said, apparently interpreting his action correctly. “It must be. Three of us had visions of it, independently, right around the time of your hatching. When we discovered we’d all had the same vision, we knew we had to watch and wait. We never knew who your mate would be.” He tipped his head toward Dylan. “Somehow, I’d expected someone different. A scholar or scientist, perhaps…”
Beneath his hands over his eyes, Dylan’s mouth scowled. “Maybe he’s got better taste than that.”
Arum tsked. “God put you in his path. A little humility would serve you well, Dylan.”
“Don’t believe anything he’s saying, Cam. They’re not on your side. Those weasels were working with them, and I know they’re your enemies.”
“There were those in the reformatore who also had the vision,” Liam said, speaking up at last. “There’s a great energy about Cameron they detected. In return for an alliance, the reformatore offered a number of their weasels to help us capture him. We only had to wait for the right moment to strike.”
The reformatore and the brothers working together? Dylan squawked and hissed. This was terrible news indeed.
Arum laid a calming hand on his head. “I know what you must be thinking, Cameron, but this is the dawn of a new age for the church. The reformatore has a vision, one in which the church will once again be a respected authority, no longer the gelded laughingstock of a liberal world. The people have forgotten who we are, what power we wield. Our plan will rectify that situation. And your offspring is essential to that plan.”
“Why not just ask him for the egg?” Dylan pressed. “I mean, he’s got to lay it sometime, right? Jesus, I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Time is of the essence. We’re heavily opposed by those who want to maintain the status quo, the impotent fools.” He shook his head. “We want to save your offspring. Take him far from here, let him grow up into whatever it is he’ll be. You must give us the egg. For safekeeping.”
Cam listened with a heavy heart. Hope for his own survival died with Arum’s words. Clearly, Arum had been playing both sides, pretending to be an honest brother with the church, while conspiring with the reformatore behind their backs. Cam couldn’t fight them all on his own. At least he needed to try to save Dylan and their egg, even if it meant going along with Arum’s plan for now. He chirruped softly to encourage Arum to continue. The monk stroked his feathers. “I would have done it quickly, without pain. I have no wish to make you suffer, Cameron.”
“The fuck you don’t!” Dylan went rigid with outrage. “You brought him here to cut him open like a Thanksgiving turkey and take what isn’t yours. What about me? It’s my egg too. Right?”
Cam’s heart swelled with pride at Dylan’s courage. If he didn’t think it might make Dylan accidentally uncover his eyes, he’d wrap his wings around him right now.
“You are the father,” Arum confirmed. “The first mating between human and trice since Alistair and his creature. Yet we’re not sure what might come of it. Something…wonderful.”
“Well, you can’t have it.” Dylan stepped toward him, eyes still covered. “That’s my kid in there, and you got no right.”
Cam lifted his head and ruffled his wings. Damn, even he’d underestimated Dylan. Arum’s mouth pursed. “Cameron, despite your mate’s misplaced bravado, you know what I’m saying is true. However, I’ll offer you an option. Allow us to take the egg. In return, Dylan’s life will be spared. He’s only a human, and there are six billion of those. It’s likely he’ll be lost in the crowd. However, if his identity should be discovered and your enemies turn on him, I give you my word that we’ll protect him.”
Indeed, both groups were ruthless. There was no guarantee either would spare a mere human who happened to father what could perhaps be a new breed of monster with skills to serve a new master. If laying down his life ensured the survival of his son and his lover, then how could Cam say no?
Dylan had groped his way over to him and now stood by his side, bunching one fist in Cam’s feathers while he kept his other hand over his eyes. Cam closed his own eyes, turned his beaked head, and nuzzled Dylan, who reached up and petted him blindly. “Fucking unbelievable, man,” Dylan muttered. “But whatever. I’m not gonna let these bastards hurt you.”
Brave words. But Dylan had no idea what the brothers were capable of. It was Cam’s responsibility to protect him and their son, no matter what. Looking back at Arum, he made a chirp of assent.
Dylan wasn’t sure what happened, but suddenly Liam had him by the arms again and was dragging him away. “Hey, you fucker! Leave me alone!” But the guy had him in some kind of hold he couldn’t break and hauled him toward the far side of the chamber.
“Liam, bring the hood and the rifle.”
Pain radiated up Dylan’s arm as Liam twisted it, then shoved him down hard in the dirt. The monk ripped off the goggles that covered his own eyes and shook a finger down at Dylan. “Stay here, or I’ll have no choice but to render you unconscious.”
Shit. He could do it too. With a lingering glance, Liam walked over to a rifle propped against the wall. It wasn’t the tranquilizer gun either, but a big one that looked like it meant business. He reached into a dark blue duffle bag that blended with the shadows and produced a leather something or other. There was also a crate about the size of a big cat carrier, which he left. Maybe that was what they planned to carry the egg off in. Checking Dylan over his shoulder with a stony glare, Liam returned to Arum, who stood with his hand still on Cam’s head.
Dylan thought his heart would rip right out of his chest. They were gonna kill him after all. Cut out that egg, steal it, and probably kill Dylan too. He wasn’t stupid. He knew a lie when he heard one, and Arum had told Cam whatever he thought would get him
to cooperate. Now Arum fastened the leather hood over Cam’s eyes, and that strange rooster noggin sagged pitifully to the ground, the tip of his beak in the dirt, the wings spread like limp shadows around him.
“It’s like hooding a hawk,” Arum said conversationally, no doubt for Dylan’s edification. “You’ll see now, he’s quite subdued.” He moved to Cam’s side, tucked in his wings, and eased him onto his side. It just about killed Dylan to see Cam roll over, like he was already dead. Definitely resigned to his fate.
He licked his dry lips. “Why d’ya have to do this? Give him time, he’ll lay the damned thing himself.”
“We don’t have the hours it would take. Besides, if he’s left alive, others would destroy him and the egg, without hesitation, to thwart our vision.” Arum gestured, and Liam stood by with the rifle. “At least this way, your offspring will survive.”
“He’s nothing but an animal to you, is he?” While Arum positioned Cam, Dylan folded up his legs to hide his movements and fished the cell phone out of his pocket. He’d managed to grab it while Liam was getting his goggles in place.
“As he is in the eyes of God. He’s a useful animal, though. There’s no shame in that. Your son will serve the church as his father did, but as a symbol of the Lord’s wrath.”
“Not if the other brothers get hold of you first.”
“With your son on our side, we can overthrow the old establishment. It’s time for a shake-up. The church has lost her way in many respects. Become impotent.” He began ruthlessly plucking feathers from Cam’s belly again. Cam’s legs twitched and trembled with every yank, but he didn’t lift his head from the floor.
Looking down at the cell phone in his lap, Dylan found Cam’s contacts. There was just one. Tash. Their only hope. He glanced up to find Liam peering at him. He dropped the phone and grabbed his knees—nothing to see here.
Arum knelt and fussed around in his briefcase. “We’ve lived in shadows too long. The church has become nearly irrelevant. Your offspring will be instrumental in regaining her former glory. The respect and even fear she once wielded.”